Siviero on ‘Visionary Engineering’
Aug. 12—Prof. Enzo Siviero, who together with Claudio Celani, wrote a call for Trump and Putin to build the Bering Strait Tunnel, has explained in a June 29 video interview what an infrastructure such as the Bridge over the Strait of Messina can bring to the local economy as a driver, during its construction phase. He also encouraged to have a broader vision, which includes exploring the feasibility of a Sicily-Tunisia connection, which he called TUNeIT.
The executive project, which the Italian government approved last week, "provides for diversification, that is, the bridge is one thing, all the complementary works are another thing, which are more than half of the overall project and are works that are normally semi-standard, so they are bridges, viaducts, railways tunnels, and junctions, and then there is the whole expropriation operation, which takes time. Not only that, but a construction site like this one, and when we talk about that construction site, we are actually talking about dozens of simultaneous construction sites because otherwise it cannot be done. It requires logistics, incredible support logistics. … If we think about logistics, we think simply about feeding tens of thousands of people, washing, ironing, supporting the whole operation, including security from the point of view of hospital health, equipping those that exist and probably implementing those who do not yet exist with field hospitals, because when you have tens of thousands of workers, it’s obvious that you have to take into account that there will be accidents or other things. Of course, it’s an environment that takes into account all possible and imaginable variables, so it’s likely that nothing will happen, but the human variable [must always be considered] … then there is all the construction site logistics: Think about transportation, concrete, the water supply—we will make desalination plants that will then remain, available to the community Where does the spoil from the tunnels go? There will be beach nourishment, in short, there is also a very accurate environmental study, let’s say that.
“I must also say, just to broaden the scope, how visionary engineering has shaped the world. Visionary engineering is what has been done for Suez as well as the Panama Canal, but also many other things, such as the Messina Bridge and this idea that I launched—which, however, is not mine because it is now about 20 years old and was launched by the Sicilian Region—for a permanent link between Mazara del Vallo and Capo Bon, that is, between Sicily and Tunisia, or between Europe and Africa.”
The project is feasible “even within the limits we find ourselves in, which are essentially craftmanship, but ideas are based on vision and the ability to invent something that did not exist before. … I believe that this can work. We have the room to make it happen because if we think that in this way, with this operation, Sicily could become the logistical hub of Europe towards Africa, in turn Tunisia could become the logistical hub of Africa towards Europe.”